Is it mostly good or mostly bad this mixed bag of a world
This interpenetrative mixture
This mixture of mixed substances
The experiences of goatboy and boygoat
Of transcendent truth and passing sensations
The breaking waves of salty ocean
The wet falling red and green leaves
Tempest-toss’d and wavering
The perplexities of desire remorse past passing fear thought and deed
Pierced with regularity
Reminder of the perfect circle
I’ll answer you when it settles down
And since that will never happen
Although the future remains ever suppositious
As do the present and the past to be frank
Those static concepts those stony composites
Pitiably subject to universal ignorance
The facts being there but nobody knows enough of them
The facts being a network of infinite points of intersection
The facts being mixed and fluxuous
Those facts that we can perceive
Although we can glimpse by exercise of will
Those facts beyond perception
But flux is not mere chaos
For merciful regularities obtain
I will give an answer fragmentary partial
Incomplete hasty casual fraught tentative biased naive
Inadequate unbidden ill-considered impolitic bland
Pecksniffian Podsnappian Pollyannaish
And ignorant as all are infinitely ignorant
But meaning well as many are wont to do
And thank human evolution that we can confer
And thank the human species
And thank all the species
The plants the animals the fungi the bacteria the infinite aggregation of the one great life
The one life within us and abroad
And thank her majesty the moon
And thank his majesty the sun
And thank the educational institutions
And thank the political institutions
And thank the institutions for health care
And thank the institutions of letters
And thank the institutions of light and more light
And thank the gurus senseis rabbis mentors and coaches
And thank Prof Parfit he of good in the reason-giving sense
And thank Prof Thibodeau he of reasons pro tanto
And thank Prof Habermas he of system and lifeworld
And thank the beautiful companion she of the improvement of sensual enjoyment
And thank the mountains the rocky the snowy the green
Even though there might occur an avalanche
And thank the wetlands the murky swamp the fragrant salt marsh
And thank the wide St Johns and the lusty Salmon and all rivers
And thank the railroads the highways the trails
And thank the technology of communication
And thank all the technologies that conduce to wellbeing
Upon which the hominins depend
And thank the artistry of all who create which is everybody
And thank the vitality of all that participate in the dance of life which is everything
And thank the cultivation of knowledge beauteous bounty in itself
And source of indispensable technology
Which is the fall of man fortunate fall
And thank the cultivation of crops
Even though agriculture begat the granary the guardhouse and the empire
And thank the noble products of artistry
The plays the music the paintings the movies the infinite aggregation of the one great poem
And thank the artists who conceive in inspiration and execute in skill
And thank the riddlers the jokers the jesters the tumblers the grinners the gurners and the fools
How is a corvid like an escritoire
How is Marilyn like a mosquito
And thank the oceans the shores and the estuaries
And thank the forests
And thank the grasslands the steppes and the tundras
And thank the dry places the arid and the semi-arid
And thank the life of the seemingly inanimate
And thank the nature of the seemingly artificial
Even unto the articles stamped out in factories some of which can be quite beautiful
And thank the heavenly bodies in our neighborhood
And thank the heavenly bodies at inconceivable distances
And thank the microorganisms and all structures of inconceivable smallness
And thank all the people the fictional and the historical
And thank those who have done wrong which is all of us
For they know not what they do
But they continue to strive
And make their contribution
And thank that busy phlebotomist the mosquito with whom we should make peace
And thank the striving that nourishes all offspring
And thank the mother
And thank the father
And thank all who care for and about
And thank the holy communion of family and friends
And thank the infinitely ignorant which is all of us
For we can confer converse confabulate
And thank again the teachers and the scholars
For we can appreciate
We can step out in the morning agape with appreciation
We can know the truth some of it
We can experience value
And most of us mean well
And therein lies a precious hint
For everybody had a mother
And if something took the mother away
Somebody else pitched in
And like as not they did the best they could
Even as the mother would
And like as not kissed the helpless babe
Who will eventually return the kiss
After learning to stand and to fall and again fall
Albeit perhaps at the deathbed or coffin dire
And while it is assuredly true
That people have committed unspeakable acts
Knocked down cities of great population with the wave of a hand
Stolen the necessities of life reducing children to brittle sticks
Forced people to hard labor for no purpose whatsoever
Tormented the living even unto our very selves
And poisoned the darling planet
We may forgive their participation
In ignorance which is universal
For everyone can know the truth
Some of it
And everyone can understand reasons for their actions
And when we discover that we have acted without reasons
As such discovery we will some time make
Having fallen and again fallen
Though a few of us are truly saintly
Though not I
We can do our best to make amends
And punish neither ourselves nor our precious family
In the endless flow of life
And love one another
While we try to shed a little light
Standing here on this green and pleasant earth
Upon which we must fall and again fall
Even amid the terrible and exhilarating flux
The more fluxuous for the regularities that obtain
Of standing and falling
Of collection and dissipation
Of past and passing
We see and therefore we say
And in our saying therefore sing
That beauty manifestly obtains
That acts of kindness and of love manifestly take place
That people manifestly can reach understanding
That they manifestly can recover the peace that dwells before understanding
And thus we can say with confidence
That good will be good
Circle circle
We gaze into the future
And kiss the child who dwells there
To waken the prismatic radiance of a single tear